The things that remain
by OniceViola
Summary: After finale Terra Nova, a Lucket Fanfiction for The Lucket Valentine Challenge. Translated from Italian Language, edited and corrected by Jemmalynette and FanyCharmed, a wonderful women. For the chapter "Sick" joins the gang also Littlestefania. For my new chapters Alexandra has made the translation. For my last chapter, my Elena translated. Thanks girls!
1. Escape

**Escape**

In the end, there was nothing left except my defeat.

My chest ached, my shoulder throbbed as if the flesh itself was burning from the inside. Hiding low in the bushes was becoming increasingly difficult. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult.

Air entered through my mouth, burning. The breath through my teeth was getting hotter. Hotter and hotter, as if my chest had become molten lead. So heavy.

She shot me. Skye shot me.

A laugh came from my throat – I could not help myself. All these years, all this work. Useless. She had chosen him. She had saved him. God, how stupid I was.

He felt nothing for me, we'd never been anything to each other.

Little drops of blood, perfect symmetrical pearls; small streams that crashed to the ground and became a trail – a trail for any soldier that was looking for me. Or any hideous beast that was around. The world was becoming blurred, I couldn't go on much longer.

In the end, my knees buckled. My hands hit the ground and softened the fall. Everything was black.

Darkness.


	2. Water

The title is "Water" and the chapter takes place after Lucas was found wounded in the jungle because Skye shot him, so it is the sequel of "Escape"  
s/11054169/1/The-things-that-remain  
and the prequel of "Sick"  
s/11054169/5/The-things-that-remain

**Water  
(Interlude)**

**"I'm so tired of being here,  
suppressed by all my childish fears.**

**And if you have to leave,**

**I wish that you would just leave.  
Your presence still lingers here  
and it won't leave me alone.  
These wounds won't seem to heal.  
This pain is just too real."**

**Evanescence**

(Lucas)

When Lucas opens his eyes, his mouth is dry, so dry that he is sure his lips are chapped. For a moment he has no idea where the hell he is. Neon lights, light ceiling, noises.

He turns on his shoulder. A sudden pain stabs him in the collarbone. They shot him. She shot him. Everythingreturns clearly to his mind. The sweat that slid over him, the knife he stuck in the belly of his father, his revenge right there, a step away from him. And then that gun that was pointed at him. Her eyes, the eyes ofhers that he always found hard and full of secrets, and for that so irresistible. The chest pain, the running in the jungle, dinosaurs not met, luckily. Then he must have blacked out.

How long was he unconscious? How long has he been there? It is definitely Terra Nova's hospital, he recognized it because he brought some of the Phoenix soldiers that were injured during the guerrilla warfareof his father's there.

His father.

Why the hell did his father not let him die in the jungle? Why did they bring him there? What do they want?Of course, they will want to know where the Sixers went to and what Mira's plan is. As if he has any idea…

God, he feels so tired. All those years of plotting revenge, surviving in the jungle by any means, eatingworms and trying to stay alive. And for what? To be defeated like an idiot. An idiot who was fooled by an ordinary little girl.

He closes his eyes.

He soon realizes his ankles and wrists are tied to the bars of the bed. Firmly. _Obviously my father learns from his mistakes_, Lucas thinks.

He then sinks into a heavy sleep full of slimy nightmares that follow him. And they always reach him

(Nathaniel)

The commander of Terra Nova is behind the glass, watching his son sleep. With every breath that he takes,the scars on his chest that are slowly healing hurt. The surgical stitches itch.

Notwithstanding the memory of what his son did to him and the pain that he caused to him, of that knife in the hand of what used to be a little child with messy hair, a quiet teenager that used to follow him wherever he went like a dog, notwithstanding all this, Nathaniel Taylor seems to breathe better while staring at his son, injured yet alive.

He would never forgive Skye for his death. Not after he lost Ayani, his beautiful Ayani. The only right thing thathe ever did.

God, she was so beautiful! And it was beautiful, returning home after a long journey and finding Ayani and Lucas hugging, asleep on the couch while they were waiting for him. He felt so good when he covered them with a blanket. He felt so good, and he used to feel his heart filled with love.

He was home.

The only place where no one wanted to kill him, the only place where there wasn't any enemy to shoot, ordecisions to make, or soldiers to train. He was home.

And then Ayani died. In that horrible way, without mercy, without peace. And it was his fault because he wasn't able to protect her. He wasn't able to protect Lucas.

After all those years passed, trying to remedy his mistakes, he failed again. He wasn't even able to protect Terra Nova when his son tried to destroy them all.

His son went crazy that day, on top of his mother's dead body. Nathaniel wasn't able to reach him, to understand him, that boy that was crazy and a genius at the same time that looked at him with his mother's eyes, if Ayani would ever be able to look at him with such hate.

The commander feels that he has to be the first one to make the first move and to try to save their bond.

Lucas is now his prisoner. He has to be unyielding with him, as though he is an enemy. The people of Terra Nova need justice.

(That night, he dreamed that the settlers kidnapped Lucas and killed him for revenge. He woke up soakedwith sweat, with screams of the crowd in his ears. Nothing like that has to happen. He will set the courts. There are going to be regular trials. There will be no pity for his son, he will be treated like all the other Sixers. But it's his responsibility to avoid lynching. The colonists are angry, too many people died. Only one spark and everything is going to blow up in chaos. He has to keep the situation under his control. But his son has to stay alive.)

Maybe he will be able to talk to Lucas while he is in prison. He can explain everything to him. Maybe he will be able to apologize for his mistakes, for banishing him to the jungle five years earlier. Maybe there is still hope.

He opens the door of the room where Lucas is sleeping. He seems to be in good condition, but he still has afever. His throat must be dry.

Taylor is going to fill a glass of water for him and help him drink. Just like when he was little and he caught that terrible virus. Ayani stayed with him day and night. He was so small and helpless as he slept wrapped up in a blanket while his mother was stroking his forehead.

Lucas opens his eyes. Nathaniel smiles; it's the first time that Lucas is awake after he found him bleeding in the forest, now he can talk to him.

The words of his son after that last and fatal fight echoed in his ears, "It wasn't my fault. Help me!" He hugged him, and he told him that he still was his little boy. Lucas was crying. And then he felt something sharp, like a blade of ice, sink in his guts. God, how much must his son hate him that he would want to stab him?

But that isn't important anymore. Now is time for the two of them to start over.

He opens a bottle of water, and he fills a glass. Lucas doesn't speak. He only stares at him. "You have atemperature, but you are not in danger. We have good doctors here, they saved you," says Nathaniel. "Drink, you need water. I'm sorry for the handcuffs, but you already ran away one time, I can't take any chances." He holds the glass near the lips of his son, who begins to drink. Nathaniel eases a sigh of relief; there seems to be less tension in the room now. Lucas swigs the water, then breathes heavily and slumps down onto the pillow once again. "I'm glad you feel better, Lucas. I… I decided to forgive you for what you did to me."

Lucas smiles. "Water," he asks. Nathaniel fills the glass again and gives it to his son. Lucas drinks eagerly. Droplets of sweat from his fever slip down from his temples.

Then he leans closer to his father, and hespits all the water on Taylor's face.

"Old Man, I don't want your forgiveness. I want my mother back, and Iwant the five years that I spent by trying to survive in the jungle. But I am a man who can appreciate the little things, so for now you can just get your repulsive face out of this room," says Lucas, his voice hoarse with the hatred and contempt he feels.

Nathaniel suppresses the urge to slap him. He wipes the water from his face and walks away.

Outside of the hospital, there is a lot of chaos. One soldier runs to him. "Sir, we found Wash! She is alive!

(Skye)

Skye sees the commander storming out of Lucas's room. She sees the soldiers surrounding Carter, and shesees the woman with the wound on her head that Carter is holding. God, she sees Alicia, and she is alive. Skye cannot believe that. This is the reason why they never found her body.

Lucas has been found, she isn't a killer. Lieutenant Washington is alive and kicking. In the end, everything has turned out well.

Skye rests her head against the wall and breathes heavily.

Her mom was singing that morning while cutting fruit for breakfast. Everything seems to have gone back to normal.

The military occupation of the Phoenix Group left deep wounds at the colony. Dead bodies, injured people, debris and a lot of destroyed houses.

The Sixers gave up. That morning they found them in front of the gates of Terra Nova with their hands up. They lost and were tired; abandoned by their mercenaries, they had no choice but to surrender. A cell is a cell, but at least there will be food and not a jungle infested with dinosaurs.

What will happen to Lucas? He still has a temperature but he is getting better. Will his father kill him? Skye doesn't believe that the commander would be able to do that. But the settlers are angry, very angry. Thatmorning, someone threw stones at the hospital for wasting resources to cure the injured Sixers. Skye does not blame them. There are almost no gauzes and medicine from 2149 is scarce.

Impulsively, Skye enters Lucas's room. She has to change his bandages. She usually waits until he is asleep or sedated, but today she has to sterilize the bandages. Other patients will need them. The situation is becoming so critical that they need to be frugal.

He turns at her, his face is still red from the temperature. Or because he just saw his father. Skye is able to see the anger and disgust still seething in his eyes. "Bucket, my assassin. Really, it's such a luck that your aim is so lousy."

"Trust me, I can do better," she answers.

"You know, Bucket, you are beautiful even with a gun in your hands. In fact, it makes you even more interesting."

Regardless of his compliments, she starts to remove the bandages. Honestly, she thought it would be worse. She thought that Lucas would scream at her, but he is just staring at her with a crooked smile on his lips. Maybe he is too weak to argue, or he has run out of his energy in the confrontation with the commander, whatever happened between them.

No signs of infection. He is healing well.

"Do you know what I missed most while I was in exile in that damn jungle?" says the boy.

"No, but I'm sure that you will tell me."

"Someone by my side whenever I woke up in the middle of night because of my nightmares. I'm so tired ofbeing here, Skye. Don't you want to go home?"

"The portal doesn't exist anymore, 2149 is unreachable. You are stuck here with the rest of us."

"Yeah, one of my father's brightest ideas. God, sometimes it feels like this pain is just too real," he says as he runs his hand trough his hair, exhausted, "There's just too much that time cannot erase."

"What the hell are you talking about? You are healing well," replies Skye, confused.

"I'm talking about soul, Bucket, and about revenge. I will not rest until my mother is avenged. Then I will have peace, then I will win. Did he ever tell you, our dear daddy, how he didn't do anything as he helplesslywatched his wife get ripped apart? I want retaliation."

"You are crazy, Lucas. An obsessed lunatic."

"Oh, really, dear 'sister'? My father was taking care of you for a few years and now you are one of his most avid fans. But trust me, I've known him for much longer, he will never forgive you for being the spy that betrayed the whole colony. He didn't forgive me, his true son. He only knows how to forgive his ownmistakes. Now, if you are done, go away."

"Gladly," she says. But she knows that he is right. The commander still does not look her in the eyes. He is polite, but the old trust between them is gone.

"And tell me, is there anyone in the colony who still talks to you?" Lucas shouts after her while she's walking out, slamming the door.

Damn him.

How can he know? How can he know about the whispers she hears everywhere she goes? About the middle-aged settler who refused to be disinfected by her and it was her shift in the hospital? About the stand at the market at Terra Nova's square that suddenly doesn't have fruit for her and for her mother?

Ungrateful. Damn ungrateful. She did everything possible to protect them, to keep them safe and at the same time save her mother.

She's only seventeen and she doesn't have anyone to talk to. Her friends have turned their backs on she was the spy who was betraying the colony for years. For the gossip that went around during the occupation. It's her fault the brawl was waged at Boylan's, soldiers whispered among themselves. And what did she promise to Lucas Taylor, the mad son of the commander, to make himrelease Josh Shannon? She definitely fucked him, the women whose children Skye was looking after for years say with certainty. The gossip has spread. Sometimes she hears someone whispering "Sixers' slut" behind her back. She turns around no one looks at her.

Skye does not know if that is the reason, but later, when it's night and the hospital is quiet, she returns. Maybe it's for the smoothness of Lucas's skin. For his fingers that run down her back. His touch, histongue that slowly dances with hers. When he enters, it hurts, and she scratches his back. If she has to be called slut, then she wants at least to have some fun.

The next morning, she says that was the last time. It will never happen again. No more wild sex done more for loneliness than love.

But the next night, she is there again.

(Lucas)

As opposed to Skye, Lucas knows exactly why he keeps waiting for her every night, in spite of the insults she hurls at him during the day. It's because of her touch. She caresses him, and Lucas misses someoneto take care of him, someone to love him. He knows he should be satisfied with this only possible substitute, and knows that once he is locked in jail, he will never see her again.

He holds her, her hips, sometimes with too much force as any night might be their last. When sunlightstarts to enter in the room, he sees that he held her too strongly and kisses the bruises that are beginning to draw a map on her fine skin.

"I wish that you would just leave, your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone. These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real," he whispers to wake her.

"Mmpf, what? What did you say?" she mutters, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Nothing, it was just an old song. It's almost dawn, you have to go before the nurses change their shift."

She gets up, takes her clothes and leaves. She doesn't even kiss him.

Lucas remembers the first time that he met her. He blackmailed her, using her mother's life as a guarantee. But the truth was that he would never hurt her mother. Deborah was one of the few people who he could talk toamong the Sixers, people whose personal hygiene was too questionable. He was only bluffing, but he knows that Skye has not forgiven him. She never will.

He knows that what's between them is not love. It has more to do with loneliness, comfort. It's about forgetting for a moment that out there is a whole colony that wants them both to die, who despises them both, even if for different reasons. The spy and the madman.

Skye could release him, let him escape, but she didn't even try and he didn't ask. Now he wishes that he did, because he can her the footsteps of his father's soldiers coming from the hallway. They are coming. It means that they have decided that he is healthy enough to be thrown in a cell.

He will never see her again. That was their last night.

Lucas Taylor, who once had power, the colony of Terra Nova and the destiny of both worlds in his hands, can't help but close his eyes when he hears the door open. He has the time to realize that the sheets stillsmell of her perfume before the soldiers take him. Four soldiers, very young and very hostile.

Welcome to your new life, prisoner of the cell number 14.


	3. Sick

Sick  
(Lucas, many years before)  
"He wants to keep our issues in the family. The two of us, we suffer from a Shakespearean relationship that borders on Greek tragedy." - Lucas.

Lucas is going to work very soon. Like he does every morning. If he leaves his house early, there are very few people around. Nobody looks, nobody asks questions.

He sees something in the middle of the market square, and a lump forms in his throat.

They're tying a young man to a pole, above a wooden structure. Military. One of the new recruits of his father. They're getting younger. Who knows what inconceivable crime he committed? A brawl in Boylan's bar? A glare at his superior?

Below, to monitor the operations is Jim Shannon, the face of a man who has had enough. Arms crossed over his chest, he looks as though he wants to be a thousand miles away. After all, he was in jail, he knows what it's like to feel powerless, overwhelmed by the regulations and by an iron fist.

The two look. Lucas would like to say something, but the lump in his throat does not allow him to utter a word. He remembers very well when he was up there, Shannon looking uncertain while tying his bonds.

Shannon looks, runs a hand over his eyes, as if he had not slept well. As if he had not slept well in years. 

"Insubordination," he spits out, as if Lucas had asked. 

"Of course. And the good old Commander? He's not stopped to look after his prisoner?" asks Lucas. 

"Today he's dealing with Wash," replies Shannon, pretending not to hear the contempt in Lucas' voice. "I'll be easier on him, it's better for the kid."

"Undoubtedly. When will it end, Shannon?" says Lucas. 

"What?" 

"All this. The military court, the curfew, the search for conspiracies in people's homes. You won, there is no more threat. No one's trying to take Terra Nova away from my father. " 

"A good speech, for someone who has so much blood on his hands. You remember Kara?" replies Shannon. 

"How many times do I have to tell you? I knew nothing about the bomb." Lucas answers impatiently. "It was Weaver's idea."

But he remembers it very well, the remains of hair and blood, collapsed near a tree. He remembers when he emerged from the portal and found himself in front of smoke, rubble and corpses. Sometimes the dreams of that night haunt him, and reminds him of what happened to his mother.

"Maybe your father would be more lenient with his people," says Shannon, "had he not been stabbed by his own son. And it's understandable that he doesn't trust anybody anymore." 

"It's been years. The Sixers are still rotting in jail. We paid enough. I paid. My every sin, every guilt, and with interest. And most of the people of this colony have already endured enough."

Jim Shannon turns and walks away, while the kid begins to cry.

Lucas makes a face, the memories fall upon him and suddenly he's 26 years old again and he is the one hung up there.

__Obviously, it is his father carrying out the sentence. __

__Lucas was convicted of, among other things, assaulting two officers with the intent to kill them. Wash and his father. He failed both times, once intentionally, the other because of the love of his life. Who, thank God, is locked in the house. __

__Deborah is sick again, or maybe she pretends to be. The important thing is that Skye is busy and does not see this. __

__They could not prove anything about the bomb that killed those people. For the other deaths in the colony, well, the Phoenix Group were not prisoners, they are mercenaries. It was easy to blame them, so no one could deny it. The soldiers of his father executed them like dogs, chasing them to the Badlands. Lucas suspected that they would willingly execute him too, but his brain can still be useful.__

__Shannon ties his wrists. The sheriff is white in the face, too pale. The whole business of convictions and courts should not please him much, our dear Jim. Strange, thinks Lucas; he was going to hurt that stupid brat, his son. Lucas would want the blood of those who seek to do harm to his family. __

__But perhaps, the first sheriff of Terra Nova is not as hard as he is trying to make himself out. Anyway, Shannon is going to see much of Lucas' blood now.__

__Yesterday, Lucas heard the screams of Carter. The sound came from his cell. It lasted very long.__

__Silence. It must be his father who has arrived. Lucas twists his neck backwards to be able to see. His arms, linked at the top, make it difficult to move.__

__The great commander is rolling up his sleeves, as if about to throw a bait in the water. As if he were on a fishing trip with his favorite son. He's picking up what appears to be a large barrel. The soldiers are still as statues. They were convinced that the commander would not have had the courage to publicly flog his only child in the market square of Terra Nova.__

__Deluded. If Lucas was a monster, he is the father of the monster. He created him.__

__Lucas looks at his father, then he winks at him, smiling barely.____"Now I am found to be a sinner and a son of sinners. You, that drank my father's blood offered you by my hands, do you remember the delicts that I did?" (1)__

__Nathaniel Taylor looks at his son and he blinks, confused. He doesn't understand, obviously. He has always been ignorant.____He would have never lost any time with the Greek tragedy, because there was a lot of military tactic to learn.__

__The first hit surprises Lucas at his shoulders. He turns his head just in time to be not hit on his face. Then there is a second hit and yet another one. At the fourth, he is already screaming.__

__He keeps on swinging up and down, his wrists twist each other and he is tugged by the strength of the hits.__

__Every time that the whip touches his back, the wrist join wrings and makes strong twinges. Lucas bites his lip to hold back groans with empty and wide eyes. He can't see well because tears cloud the sight, but he can recognize some of the faces of the people reunited to see the show.____Boylan, with terrified eyes, who looks like he wants to escape and hide in his bar.____Josh Shannon, paler than his father.____Two settlers that were evidently enjoying the show. Maybe their relatives died. Revenge. Lucas understands very well its sweetness.__

__Another hit ends up on his clavicles, on the already red and purple skin.__

__It's too strong and blood starts to pour. Lucas sees some drops in front of his feet, he can perceive them dripping hot on his wounds, making his back burn more and more.__

__He must stand. He mustn't fall. He mustn't faint. His father would be able to cheer him up, and then continue for another day.__

__This time the hit beats his hip and he staggers and stumbles over. His arms wrings unnaturally, a stab of pain takes aim at his hit, this time on the opposite side, pulls out another scream, the tendon of the neck bends backward. The head turned to the sky, in a shout that he can't suffocate.__

__With the corner of his eye he sees a pair of women taking out from the square fast. They look in tears. Are they like this for him? For the first enemy of their colony? It would be touching if the skin on his back was not being ripped.__

__Lucas knows that he can't bear the pain for much longer. The ears start to buzz. He can't forget Bucket's present, the bullets to extract.__

__He isn't as strong as before, his body fails and his soul is weak. He must make his father stop, even if he has to implore. But, maybe, imploring wouldn't be necessary.____"Wait. Please," he babbles to his father.__

__Nathaniel Taylor stops with the arm still raised to beat.____"Lucas, what…" he says to his son.__

__"I would say to you…" his son interrupts him, every word is torn off from his bloody lips, "…that this also happened to Mom. They were fine, they kept her alive for a long time, but you… you don't have anything to envy to them. You're a perfect torturer!"__

__Commander Taylor opens his eyes wide, astonished, as if someone gave him a punch to the stomach.__

__He starts to beat his son again, but without mordant. The whip falls at random on the legs, the bottom and the kidneys of the guy, missing him sometimes.__

__Then he throws the whip away, Shannon makes a sign, turns and goes away, without a word. But Lucas doesn't move, the head dangles on his chest. When he stands up, with tears streaming on his face, he sees his father running away, splitting the crowd.____The young Shannon vomits all his breakfast on his shoes.__

__Then, luckily, Lucas faints.__

_Nb (1) The sentence pronounced by Lucas is taken from "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles)_


	4. Agony

**Agony **

When he opens his eyes, there's a throbbing pain that comes from his back, his legs, his kidneys, from every point of his body, and the suffering was breath-taking.

Agony_._

**Lucas suddenly remembers. Everything that has happened: the martial law wanted by his father, the judicial process. He remembers the face of his father while executing the sentence. **

**The blood spatter. His blood. At least Skye had not seen it. **

**Lucas remembers what he whispered to his father. Hopes intensely of having split his rotten heart.**

He pauses. Laughter begins to make its way between his lips, and something on his right side makes a noise – an annoying, consistent beep, just behind his right ear.

"Dr. Shannon, he's awake," says a female voice.

"Lucas, Just try to _stay calm! _I'm injecting the painkiller," says the reassuring voice of Dr. Shannon.

Her husband, standing behind her, did not look happy. His face had that sick, nauseated expression. Lucas expected that he was the executioner. After all, was he not the damned Sheriff, the puppet in the hands of The Commander? The funny thing was seeing Young Shannon whiten progressively in the corner, and at the slightest drop of blood, turn around and throw up. It was the last thing Lucas had seen before passing out.

But in the end, all of this was worth it, because he had done it for her. Years of equations, calculations, plans, the loneliness – his icy heart had been eager to get to this. He had surrendered to everything, to the dictatorship of his father and his insane dream of having a Paradise over which to reign. He had surrendered to the metal door of that small brig in which he was confined, at least for another year.

He had surrendered for a smile. To no longer feeling so alone. To having someone, to being loved just for what he was. He was not a soldier, he would never be a hero, nor a good son. Not even a good man. But he was loved.

_Finally._


	5. Secret

**Secret (****many years after the Occupation)**

"Dad, I need to talk," admits the boy – eighteen years old, strong and stormy-eyed.

The older man stood up and went to sit next to his son. He had not aged well, but in that way that only the men used to being beautiful can afford. White threads in the hair from neglect, wrinkles around the green eyes, with deep bags, from too much work and little sleep.

"Tell me," replied a smiling Lucas.

"I don't want to study physics and mathematics. I'm no good, I'm not as smart as you. I can't work with these machines. I know I'm a disappointment to you," the boy admitted, clearly upset.

The man watched his son, stunned, then started laughing.

The teenager's eyes widened, his eyes full of astonishment and anger. "Why are you laughing?!" exclaimed the boy. "I'm trusting you, I'm trying to explain."

"I've spent my whole life trying to please my old man and this has never happened. I was too weak, not disciplined enough. Unsuited to military life. I was a constant disappointment to him. But you, never, not even once have you been a disappointment to me." He continues with a firm voice: "Not you, even if you do not choose a life like mine, even if you decide not to work with me in the lab. "

"Well, about that..." began his son, "I like military life. Colonel Guzman said that I could be a good officer. He says that I could be a good military surgeon. I can't understand anything about physics, but the human body is the real mystery...fascinating, and then mom would be happy ... "

"Your grandfather will be proud," interrupted his father, saying the word 'grandfather' with thin contempt. "But now, listen to me. You will never be a disappointment to me. Never. You were my salvation. Everything I've done, everything good that I have done in my life, I've done for you. And for your mother. "

"Dad..." replied the son, hesitant. "I know. You're always there for me. But sometimes, it seems to me that the soldiers talk behind my back. Sometimes, when I arrive, everyone suddenly stops talking. Then there's so many rumors about you and Grandpa, especially since he left and spends his time fishing. I know that there is a secret that you don't want to tell me. Mom always mutters when I ask why you and Grandpa have a rilvalry. I really like Grandpa; my grandfather was the best you could wish for..."

"You," interrupted his father again, as if he had not heard, and was following a speech that was only in his head. "You were the first person in my life that was mine, I could love you no matter what, I will love you unconditionally. That would never change. And this is the only thing that you must remember. The only thing you need to know "


	6. Gravity

Gravity

(Lucas and Skye, many years after)

He runs a hand through her hair, tangling up his fingers in that 'work all day in the hospital, mother of two' hairstyle.

"Do you still love me?" she asks.

"Are you kidding? Our love has withstood the damn dinosaurs, two brats

screaming, the wrath of my father's soldiers!" he answers, laughing. "We've survived jungles infested with hideous creatures and even that damn Josh Shannon, who used to pine over you all the time. By the way, don't you think he's put on a nice belly? "

"Stop it!" she scolds him. "What about you and that lab assistant of yours, the one with the glasses and the adoring gaze that came in the Sixteenth Pilgrimage?"

"Who?" he questions, looking confused. "I change assistant every two months. I seem to be too demanding ... "

"Oh, you're an asshole!" Skye giggles. "That little girl you loved is gone and crying ... "

"It seems to me that these new settlers are getting younger and unnecessary. At least all these new colonies are helping to fix the future."

"I'm not sure that's a good thing," she says, running her fingers along the scars behind his neck. "We're deforesting the landscapes. And the wildlife there is suffering. I think that we're repeating the mistakes of our ancestors."

"It's progress, honey," he says, hugging her. "You cannot rebuild humanity without doing some damage. This planet was not destined to remain a land untouched. And speaking of planets, of course I still love you. You're my gravity, are you're what keeps me grounded. "

And then he kisses her.

And yet, after all this time, there was no other.

The author thanks jemmalynette for editing and translation


	7. Mistake

This Chapter is for Jemmalynette.

Alexandra has made the translation of the entire chapter. I am so grateful, there are no words.

Dear readers, thank you for your reviews. Give me the incentive to keep writing

( A few months after the Occupation )

Lucas knows that he made a lot of mistakes in his life.

But in that moment, while he is pointing the knife to his father's throat, he is sure that he is finally doing the right thing.

" This time, I'm not going to miss, father! "- he is growling - " You should have killed me. Not that you didn't try. But you are a coward, you could never do a clean job, right? First the jungle, then your fucking public execution.

You tried everything that could have killed me,without your direct responsibility.

What kind of father tries to kill his son? " he says, mockingly. Because while he is growling all this, with his voice high enough for the presents to hear him, he is holding the great Commander by the hair, pointing a blade to his throat.

Inside of the bar, no one moves. No one tries.

Lucas entered so silently, than no one even realized that he was there. Not till he held the hair of his father in one hand, overthrew his had and pointed the knife to his throat.

The Commander was surprised. More than one settler is asking to himself, if he is too old to guide Terra Nova.

The more sentimental ones, are asking to themselves if those two are finally going to kill each other and how can a relation between father and son be so messed up.

The smartest settlers, are asking to themselves how much they have to pay for the actions of that fool, and how much the rules that control the Colony will be aggravated.

And when the problems of the Taylor family will stop to involve everyone.

Nathaniel Taylor knows that his biggest mistake was to banish his own son.

He hunted a scared kid in the jungle, without any regrets.

He banished him, without swords and without food.

He thought that he would returned the next day. But it never happened.

A mistake that was followed by a long chain of mistakes, one bigger from the other.

But now the knife ( why did it always have to be a knife the sword of the snakes, the cowards, the favorite sword of his son? ) It is pointed to his throat and it would take a moment for him to slash his jugular vein.

He can't think about anything but that the last thing that he will see, will be the filthy floor of Boyland.

Skye knows that she made a mistake when she shot to Lucas, the first time that he tried to stab his father.

She knows that she didn't have a choice, but she isn't a murder.

The memory of Lucas's body that falls, nauseated her.

She had nightmares for days.

When they found him alive, it had been like something heavy had been lifted from her shoulders.

She thinks shat the relief of not being a murder, the pity that she feels for him, the shame of being the cause of the scars that cover his chest, has really influenced what happened between them.

But now she doesn't have time for the memories, or for ruminations.

Once again she held the balance of power and she was in the middle of a fight between the two Taylors, disarmed.

But she doesn't need a gun, not this time.

This time she only needs five words.

" Let him go. For me. For us " she screams, then she rests a hand on her still perfectly flat tummy. There's no need to say or do anything else.

Lucas understands immediately.

In the end, he is supposed to be a genius.

He opens his eyes wide, they are huge, Skye could see his brain working.

Then, he lets go his father, he lets go of his knife and then he throws his hands in the air very slowly.

The punch of Nathaniel gets him on the cheekbone, from the sound that comes out he probably broke it.

He doesn't feel pain, only hot on the side of his face.

He falls to the ground while the soldiers enter in the bar, probably Boylan called them.

Or maybe not, he is still behind the counter. While the soldiers kneel Lucas and handcuff him, it looks like he is looking at him with pity.

He lets them maneuver him like a puppet and while they lift him from the floor he searches Skye's eyes.

She is pale, and Lucas realizes that he doesn't even know how old is she, or when is her birthday.

God, maybe she didn't even turn eighteen. Too young to have a baby. It was stupid.

He didn't even think about it. They don't know anything about each other. They didn't think to have precautions.

Bad situation, for someone who should be on top of everyone.

" Do you know what it has been my worst mistake? - he says to her - while the soldiers drag him away - bump you against that Rover. And then leaving you there. Everything could've happened to you. I thought that the Rover could've protected you long enough for someone to find you, but i did a huge mistake.

I was too angry. Damn, a beast could've come..."

The soldiers push him out of the door, but she can still hear him " I won't leave you again, I'll do everything you want".

The people sitting at the tables start to drink again, there are laughs, sighs of relief.

Nathaniel Taylor is still in the middle of the room, he is massaging his knuckles because they still hurt from the punch that he gave to his son.

He got caught like an idiot, in the only meeting place in Terra Nova.

The gossip is already going around. He has to resize the control. Someone is going to pay for all this. First the man that should've been in front of Lucas's cell and should've controlled him.

And where did he get that damned knife?

Lucas has to serve another year in prison. He knew that the military court have been too clement with him.

His son was dangerous, and he will probably always be.

But now he has to talk to Skye. She is so pale that her eyes seem almost dark.

He gets close to her, he rests a hand on her shoulder because he wants to comfort her.

" So...the gossip about you and Lucas was true..." He says, in a abrupt way.

" It's none of your business, Commander. Or this is a crime too now?

" only If you helped Lucas escaping, that is a crime. Did you do that? "

" Maybe I did! Do you really want to punish a pregnant girl? ".

Skye smiles, while she lifts the hand that he rested on her shoulder. Then she leaves, turning away, without saying a single word.

He is not going to talk to her again in the next months.

He will se her a month later at the market with her mom, bigger and heavier.

He knows that he have already made his decision. He doesn't even know the sex of his future.

One night, after a lot of months. The commander is in front of a chessboard, in a night where the full moon fully lights Terra Nova.

Alone. He doesn't have no one to play with and the night seems longer to him.

Someone knocks at the door. He knows, that it is for Skye.

And he knows that he has to his son, who is still rotting in his cell.

He knows that he has to take a decision.

And this time he doesn't have to make mistakes.


	8. Special (first part)

**This Chapter is for Fanycharmed. For her intelligence and for her patience in listening to me. There are aspects of Lucas Taylor that I understand only because of her acumen, she have explained me.**

**Many thanks for my new translator, Anne Marie! Thanks girl! You rock!**

****Special****

****First part****

****(Nathaniel Taylor, about two years after the occupation.)****

The commandant is alone. It's past the hour of dinner, and the colony is silent. Lately Nathaniel Taylor has always been alone. The soldiers obey him at as much as lifting up an eyebrow, this is true. But he has no one anymore in the evening with whom to play a game of chess. Not his son, who never liked playing with him anyway, not Skye, not Wash.

Alicia Washington. His lieutenant is back from the netherworld, changed. Her eyes, those eyes so strict, say to him clearly that also this once he failed to rescue a woman that he loved, a woman who remained alongside of him all those years.

Lucas hoped he would come out of his hole to rescue her like the heroes do. He knew that he was ambushed, and he used Wash like a lure. And he, the hero, the great commander, he allowed his son to shoot her.

Afterwards, the joy of knowing that she was still alive was obscured by the fact that it was Carter, that scum itinerant, who had cured and saved her. He was staying at the colony to assist her, and he delivered himself to his soldiers to stay beside her.

And what is worse, Alicia has a strange gaze when she looks him. Not one that is reserved for the enemy, one when understanding he is armed and dangerous.

Now it is no more like it used to be. Now he is truly alone at the command. Oh, sure, Jim Shannon obeys without a murmur. But he doesn't understand. How could he understand?

And when Alicia… No, when Lieutenant Wash looks at him, her eyes tell him clearly that she knows he left her there to die. She remembers. Lucas has swindled him for the umpteenth time. He made sure that the woman, who only now he knows he is in love with, could see. She could see that nothing is more important than Terra Nova to him.

This is his colony, they are like his sons. They are all his sons. All is his responsibility, all is his failure. He has failed. He continues to fail.

The knock on the door is so strong it makes him jump. Skye. It must be about Skye. The commander gets up with a sigh. The side and the old wound that Lucas has inflicted to him still hurts him sometimes.

But he will not give up. Not this evening and not even tomorrow.

Xxx

Lucas is not sleeping. From his cell, he can hear the usual, customary noises. The guards who converse among themselves. The keys that turn. The recruit who washes the pavement with too much soap, judging by the screams. Carter, who whistles, always the same ditty, always out of tune.

He feels good, because he is locked up in the cell immediately after Carter. He always manages to see Lieutenant Washington when she goes to see him, he sees the movement through the peephole. Each time she passes in front of his cell, she realizes that he is spying on her. And for that, every time, she raises her pretty little hand and she shows him the middle finger, to make it clear that she hasn't forgotten the gun that he aimed at her head. She will not forget, ever.

They have not forgotten, not even the soldiers who are his captors. At least a couple of times a week they piss into the bowl in which they bring him food, to make it clear that even they haven't forgotten about the night that he shot Alicia. Or when he stabbed their commander. Or when he took him hostage, mocking the watchman on duty.

Lucas definitely knows how to make friends.

However, whenever Alicia Washington goes to visit the prisoner of cell 14, Carter, she leaves behind a trail of scent. And when she goes away, she smiles. Always.

Lucas is happy for them. He hopes that jealousy is splitting that withered heart that his father has to shreds.

And by the way, judging from the noise the soldiers are making, the heels slamming, the excitement, the greetings, the grand commander has decided to make a yet another evening visit at his favorite son's cell. Usually he never comes so late. It must really be a special evening.

xxxx


	9. Special (second part)

(Lucas)

With a squeak, the cell's door opens. When his father comes in, nothing on his face gives a clue to guess if he's bringing good or bad news.

"Was he born?" Lucas asks.

"So it's a male?" the commander replies. "It's been months since Skye spoke to me, she didn't tell me anything."

"Funny, you're such a reliable and sympathetic man," Lucas answers back, sarcasm trickling down his words.

"Son..."

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" Lucas screams, moving backwards "You're not even remotely worthy of being my father..."

"Well, well. Don't yell. And speaking of fathers, your son is waiting for you."

"Fine. Take me to see him."

"Not so fast. I don't trust you."

"Good heavens, old man. Whatever you want, but let's go away from here!"

Nathaniel takes a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket. Lucas laughs.

"Fantastic! Do you want me to meet your first grandson like that?"

Nathaniel doesn't reply, manacles him and pushes him out of the cell.

It's almost night, no one's around. The hospital is empty. Skye is alone, no one in her room, no one waiting outside. Lucas immediately notices that there are no flowers or teddy bears next to her bed. She's lying on the pillows, ghastly. She doesn't look at them as they enter the room, stubbornly facing the wall.

No merry family for the arrival of this child. No friend bringing funny toys as a present. No gifts, ribbons or balloons. Where the hell is everyone? How did they, those damned idiots, dare leave Skye alone? Where's her mother?

Lucas would like to shout his frustration and anger out. He takes a deep breath in order to calm down, then approaches her.

He brushes her hand with a caress. She withdraws.

"How are you?" he asks her.

"I just gave birth. Guess how I could feel..." she replies, grimacing. A trickle of sweat flows from her forehead, slowly reaching her neck.

A nurse comes in, holding a tiny bundle in her arms. If she's taken aback at the sight of the commander-in-chief of the colony alongside a skinny, manacled young man looking like he's a beast in a cage, she doesn't show it. She hands the baby to the two men, with the skilled gestures of an expert who has done it a thousand times. Lucas opens his eyes wide. He lifts his manacled wrists and caresses the baby's cheek with a finger.

"His name will be Julius!" he asserts, secure. "It was the name of one of the greatest physicists of the past. Without him, we wouldn't have had any study about particle accelerators and about consequences of using deuterons and…"

"Whatever. Just don't call him Nathaniel Jr.," Skye replies, interrupting him.

The commander winces, but pretends nothing happened.

The newborn opens his eyes and yawns. Lucas's gaze, when he sees him move, becomes huge. His eyes open wide and seem to swallow his scrawny face, emaciated by many months in prison.

The young man turns to Skye.

"I don't even have a ring to give you," he mutters, as if talking to himself.

"I don't want anything from you…"

Nathaniel coughs behind them. He seems uncomfortable. Lucas hates it when his father is present at their skirmishes.

His relationship with Skye has never been easy, it never seems good enough. Nothing he could ever do will be enough to erase the past, the things he did. Or the ones his father did to him. Control the past and you control the future, he said to Skye, like millions of years ago. Such a mocking, bitter irony.

The commander gives Lucas something. His son looks at him, with a crooked grin.

"Did you maybe write off the fact that I'm still manacled?"

So Nathaniel, with an exhausted sigh, stretches his hand towards Skye to give her something he keeps hiding in his fist.

"It was Ayani's, she would have wanted you to keep it."

Skye opens his hand. It's a ring. She doesn't say anything, she doesn't put it on. But she puts it on the bedside table. It's a good beginning.

In that moment, the baby begins to cry.

Nathaniel takes him in his arms. He seems so tiny compared to the big commander.

"Keep. Those. Hands. Away. From. My. Son," Lucas growls.

Nathaniel takes a deep breath and forces his decision out, the one he turned over in his mind during the last weeks.

"You cannot raise him in a cell. And Skye is still a child. I will keep him. I will take care of him."

"Don't you dare. I will make this place rotten away before you manage to steal my son from me," Lucas answers, quickly losing his temper.

"Lucas, use your brain! Skye has to continue her apprenticeship in the hospital. You certainly are not able to look after him. Or do you intend to turn my jail, in which you're pent because you tried to kill us all, into a nursery?"

"YOU SON OF A BITCH! I should have stabbed you harder when I could!"

"You've never even known your grandmother, I wouldn't give such a judgement!"

Lucas rushes into him, trying to snatch Julius out of his hands.

"Stop!" Skye shouts "That's enough!" The two men stop. Skye stretches her arms and takes the baby. She puts him on her shoulder and glares at Nathaniel Taylor. "You won't take this child. He will grow up in a cell or I will bring him with me when I go to the hospital. You've had your trials. You've had your revenge. You won't take the only thing that remains away from me. Now get out. Both of you. Go away!" Skye orders, her voice growing feeble.

(Nathaniel)

Before closing the cell's door, Nathaniel stops to look at his son. After he's freed him from the laces, Lucas sat on the cot. He didn't say a word during the way from the hospital to the prison. Nathaniel tried to say something, to comment Julius's weight or his pretty nose, surely Skye's one, because the Taylors had only prominent noses. Lucas didn't utter a single syllable, but he turned to watch when they met Mark and Maddy laughing, holding each other. They were coming back from Boylan's bar after a clearly successful date. The soldier smiled while brushing Jim's daughter's hair. They seemed so young. So happy. Lucas was so petrified in watching them that the commander had to grab his elbow to make him walk again.

When he closes the cell's door, he gets a last sight of his son. Lucas is curled up, while covering his face with his hands.

While he enters the corridor to leave the prison, he feels as though he can hear a strangled sob. He has to fight the urge to go back and embrace him. That son who hates him so much he even forbids him to take his grandson into his arms. That son he himself has doomed.

When he closes the prison's door, the security guards jerk into a salute. The full moon still enlightens the colony, but Nathaniel knows it's just an illusion. It's already diminishing, it's becoming waning and soon will be just a black hole, empty, just as his own heart seems to be now.


	10. Wicked

**Wicked**

At the beginning they are not very gentle with each other.

They don't look like foreplay. It looks like a battle. They kiss, and every kiss ends up being a bite.

She caresses him with her nails on the chest. She makes them pass too near his scars, those which she herself has given to him.

The bullets' holes are healing, even slowly.

If someone had told me, Skye thinks.

I wouldn't ever believed them. It isn't happening. Not with the Commander's crazy son.

But precisely Lucas's strokes, those of the man who has brought so much death and destruction in her house, are making her moan. His kisses on the neck are making her feel in peace, sheltered. And she answers with passion, even too much, given that she's moving his bandages. She hears him groan in pain.

He raises and lays down on her, he halts her hands on top of her head to avoid other scratches.

"Stop hurting me, Bucket, it still isn't enough?" he whispers in her ear, panting for the effort and excitation.

Actually, he's enjoying himself, it's obvious from the sizeable erection pushing against Skye's thigh.

"I think now it's my turn to hurt you," he says, always whispering in her hear.

Instead, when he lowers to suck her nipples, he's delicate. His tongue's pressure increases and she feels a sudden heat spreading from her stomach. So it was this, the thing they all are about…

Lucas nibbles at her nipples and she envelops his legs with her own, as if she has to keep him in place.

How funny, Skye thinks, it's like someone else is manoeuvring my body. Shit, everyone could enter this room: a nurse, a sentry. We have to stop it now. We have to halt.

But he has already taken off her panties and he's brushing her right _there_.

It's wonderful.

Skye doesn't have an exact idea of what Lucas is doing to her. Before him there have been only stolen kisses with the garrison's soldiers. Innocent flirtations, to pass the time. Josh Shannon's very clumsy caresses.

But she doesn't stop him and, when he penetrates her, she bites his shoulder in order not to scream. She scratches his back, his shoulders.

She tries to open further her legs to have a little relief, and he's fully in, completely on top of her.

Oh my god.

When he starts moving inside her, that burning sensation and that pressure seem to mitigate.

Not so much, but she begins to feel less pain, a kind of heat and moisture. He kisses her, their tongues entwining. It's almost comforting.

Lucas pushes harder and starts biking her neck, small bites going down her collarbones. Skye doesn't know if she wants it to last forever or to stop immediately, because it's too much to take.

When it ends, he collapses down on her with a moan. She can't say how long it lasted. Two or ten minutes, a year, a century. She feels happy, but also empty and sore, tired as never before. She opens her eyes and look at him.

Lucas is sweaty and has the eyes of a person who, after running miles, has just drunk his first water sip. He kindly kisses the tip of her nose.

"It's _my_ first time, so why are_ you_ bleeding?" she says to attenuate the tension. Lucas's bandages are torn up, small rivulets of blood running all over his chest.

He kisses her hair. He feels just like an idiot. But there's nothing simple, or predictable, concerning Skye. Not only he didn't foresee it, but he didn't stop, too. He didn't even think about doing it. It had been too much since he had sex with someone. Years alone, living in that fucking jungle, and I turn into a boor, Lucas thinks with bitterness.

"Are you fine?"

"Of course I am! Beside I just have been in bed with the worst enemy of the Colony, the bogey man used to scare the children" she replies. Now she's not joking anymore.

He makes her place her head on his shoulder and starts talking softly, as to a child who's being told a fairytale.

"When I was alone in the jungle, I felt so abandoned that I fell asleep nearly crying. I thought that in a short while I would have seen my father coming with a squad. They would have taken me back to the Colony. He couldn't really have left me dying there. Not my father. Then, as time went by, I understood no one would have rescued me. I had to do it on my own." he says, brushing her hair.

"Then the Sixers came".

"Yeah… and now you are there," he says, while holding her tighter.

But it's only a moment: she immediately moves away, gets out of the bed and begins to get dressed again.

"I don't think you're worth any kind of deliverance".

"Maybe I'm not. Will you be back tomorrow night?" he asks her, with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"I won't."

"Don't leave me alone."

It's not a request.

She doesn't reply, she doesn't even turn to watch him, she puts her trousers on and walks away stumbling a little. The night seems very cold to her, compared with the heat she has inside.

The day after she wakes up early, dull and aching.

While she does her shift in the hospital, she asks herself if she's different from the outside. The others will see her in a new light?

Someone could notice? She doesn't feel like an adult. Only very tired and with aches and pains, as after a long run.

But the day easily passes by, until in the middle of the afternoon one of the oldest colonists refuses to be medicated by her, "the Sixers spy".

While steadies the boat, Skye hides in the storage closet to cry. Noone amongst the other apprentices comforts her.

After a long time, the hospital's corridors are deserted.

The sentry in front of Lucas's door is busy courting the only nurse in shift. It seems to work.

Skye is silent as a phantom. Two years passed as a spy helped with something, after all.

She slides into Lucas's room without a creak.

"You're back!"

"There's no deliverance, neither for me, Lucas. Make place."

She curls up on his chest, he holds her and starts kissing her. When he's with her, nothing can touch him. Nothing else seems relevant, even if just for a little while.

They still have a few hours before dawn comes.


	11. Nightmare (first part)

**Lucas, 16 years old**

"**Take me out tonight  
Oh, take me anywhere, I don't care  
I don't care, I don't care  
Driving in your car  
I never, never want to go home  
Because I haven't got one  
No, I haven't got one…"**

**(The Smiths)**

Lucas is in darkness, in his room. The dark is utter, piercing, it envelops him. He likes it this way.

He just travelled for hours, going back to Chicago, to the quite luxurious apartments allocated to the great commander. His father, the war hero.

Who, obviously, isn't there.

His only son has been kicked out of the world's most famous and demanding MA, because of insubordination (and because of a profitable dealing of substances he was able to create in the chemical lab), and he isn't there.

Obviously, he's coming, furious as never before. Furious with him: because he stained his family's good name, because he will never be a soldier. Because he's an everlasting failure. It must be annoying to his father since he's sacrificed his mother for him, he reminds himself.

Not that his father doesn't show his contempt to him repeatedly, looking at him as if he's looking at his cadets, the young and newly arrived, those who are not good soldiers yet. Those who have to be refined, molded, chiseled, until they are a killing machine, efficient, devoted and obedient.

All the things he will never be.

Lucas hasn't had a decent night of sleep in about two years. Indeed, when your mother gets raped and killed, very slowly, right in front of your eyes, a little bit of post traumatic insomnia is one of the things which can occur. As soon as he closes his eyes, he sees his mother screaming; every fucking night.

He often hears her voice, his mom's voice, especially in his dreams. "Hello, honey, welcome home." She told him that every day, every time he came back home from school.

His mom. The one who always had a caress for him; the one who hid all his wrongdoings from his father, like the day when, as a six-year-old, he disassembled his father's very expensive Plex to see how it worked.

God, how much he misses his mom. She could make even the big and cold Nathaniel Taylor laugh. His father looked at her as if she were the only thing in the whole world, the only relevant thing.

Since he has learned how to synthesize those Mcd pills, sleeping is no more a problem for Lucas. He falls in a deep sleep, from which he wakes only with the 6 AM's muster.

Then his dormitory pals discovered what he could do, and it took a moment to become the school's drug dealer. He's lucky that the headmaster didn't have him arrested, not wanting to stain the school's good name. Such an old and illustrious institution…

_Dear God,_ Lucas thinks, _I've been such an asshole._

His room's familiar darkness cradles him, comforts him…

Maybe they could begin from the start, he and his father. Maybe this time he will explain himself, he will make him understand that he's unfitto be a soldier, an officer; he hates taking orders. Nothing bad about giving them and being obeyed, but he doesn't want that kind of life in which there's always a gaffer above you dictating orders. Not everyone is as kind as General Philbrick, his father's mentor. Actually, he has known so many slimy pieces of shit that he's had enough of them for a lifetime. As soon as his father comes back home, he will explain it all to him.

He's so tired that, for once, he's falling asleep without pills; the drowsiness begins to envelop him.

Then, he hears the entrance's door open noisily.

"Lucas!" A cry that comes from downstairs.

Here it is, he's finally back.

Lucas abruptly sits on his bed. He holds his head in his hands. He must calm down. He must talk with him. He mustn't scream. He has to apologize, to make him understand.

He will never be a soldier. Never. He wants to go to university to study Physics. His marks are excellent; he's too clever compared to his peers to waste his time saying "Yes, sir."

When his father opens the door wide and turns the light on, Lucas understands from his face that the school's headmaster did formally let the accusations die down, yes, but the fucking bastard probably phoned Daddy to make sure he knew everything: about the pills and about the drug dealing. You never know how nice it must be, for a moldy pen-pusher, to be able to mock a decorated war hero; to throw in his facethat his son is not only a wimp but also a drug addict. A crook.

His father's face is made of stone. His eyes are harsh like glass. They don't convey anything but rage.

Then, Lucas sees the belt swinging from his right hand. Too late to try talking to him or discussing anything. His father is too angry, he doesn't even say a word. He takes him by a wrist and lifts him. He's always been stronger, so much stronger than that weedy and pale son, lost among his equations and books.

And the thing which Lucas will remember, more than the pain of the leathering, which luckily ends quickly, or the consequent rebuke (the one which, on the other hand, seems to last for hours), is his look.

As if nothing in the world will ever make him happy again, as if he is trapped in an existence with a son whom he doesn't understand and despises.

_Welcome home, honey._

**"I never, never want to go home**  
**Because I haven't got one**  
**No, I haven't got one…"**

**Lucas, 26 years old**

Lucas is sitting on the ground, his head leaning against the door of his prison cell. At the other side, the great commandant is babbling.

The old man is drunk, Lucas thinks.

He doesn't call him Dad anymore, not even in his thoughts. But he knows very well that he is still the grandpa of the little creature sleeping in his arms.

Julius is asleep, fortunately. A newborn growing up in a cell. What a ridiculous and terrible thing.

_At least my fath-… the commander will never have him,_ Lucas thinks.

"You know, Lucas, your mother always said, 'Having children doesn't make you a parent, as having a piano doesn't make you a pianist.' But then she reassured me, smiled and told me that I would become an excellent father…" Nathaniel tells him from the other side of the thicksteel dividing them.

"Go to bed, you are making an amusing show to your soldiers."

"I don't give a fuck. Your mom was so beautiful. When you was born, she held you in her arms, so radiant, as if you were her last hope. And, actually, you were…"

"What the hell are you saying, old man?"

"Boy, have you ever wondered why you are an only child? I'm an highly decorated hero, I could afford two children. Damn, those of the government loved me so much that they would have made an exception to the law and let me have even three children. But you mother couldn't have any others: every time she was pregnant, after a while, she aborted… And I tried to cheer her up, to tell her that this wasn't important, that all I needed was her, my Ayani, my beautiful Ayani…" Nathaniel's voice stops and Lucas understands that his father is crying.

Damn!

Then he remembers.

It's hot in his cell. Julius was crying for an hour even though Lucas was lulling him and singing all the songs that came to his mind. He was sweaty, he couldn't sleep.

Maybe it's August. The anniversary of his mother's death. That's why the old man has drunk too much.

"You never told me that," Lucas whispers.

"Your mother wanted this to stay as a secret of ours. She said that your birth was a miracle. You were her little miracle. And she told me that I would be the best father in the world," Nathaniel's voice becomes more and more blurred. He's sobbing.

Lucas is embarrassed for his father. He hates him but a little part of his mind can't help wondering about what she would have thought of him, of what he has become. His mom. His beloved mom.

He tried to kill his father. Twice. The knife penetrating the stomach, the feeling of pliability under his fingers while he sank the blade in his father's viscera.

Did his mother see him? Wherever her soul stays, did she feel ashamed?

He is a physicist: he knows that when matter dissolves, there's nothing more. Soul is irreducible, so it doesn't exist.

He would do everything to talk to her again.

Would his mother love his little Julius? She would adore him. She would love Skye, so fearless and rough. And she would have kicked his father's ass because of his banishment from Terra Nova. Who knows what she would have thought about the drift of the colony, with his father bossing around, his stupid processes, the curfew, the martial law, the public floggings, the absurd laws. She would have helped his father, avoided his madness.

At the other side of the door, there's no noise. Maybe, finally, the guard has taken the commandant away and sent him to bed.

Lucas closes his eyes, at last there's only darkness, darkness and silence.

**36-years-old Lucas**

Lucas knew that it would be an awful idea. But Julius insisted very much; he loves spending time with his grandfather, damn! And the Commandant loves finding new places for fishing, so Lucas is stuck in this trip with his old and hated parent and an enthusiastic and hopping preadolescent, who seems to enjoy getting into the most dangerous situations he can find.

As if Lucas hasn't had enough of that fucked jungle.

"Dad, Dad! Look! What is this herb? Is it edible?"

"Don't touch this! It's a poisonous plant: you'll get a skin rash for a week!"

"What is a rash?" the little guys asks.

"Ask your mother, she's the doctor… Commandant, where are you leading us? For God's sake!"

Nathaniel ignores his son to talk to his grandson, who is clearly having more fun than ever before. "You'll see, Julius, Grandpa has found a pretty little lake. It should be right behind that hill, but I haven't come here for years. Maybe, it is the hill on the right…"

"What a beautiful idea, but let's not waste any more time! I have a laboratory to lead…" Lucas stops him.

"Don't listen to your dad, Julius. He'll learn very soon that the time spent with children is the most precious…"

"Said the man who was on military missions for ten months every year during my childhood."

"What is a military mission, Dad?" Julius asks.

"Ask your grandpa, he is the soldier…"

"You know, Julius, serving your own country is the noblest thing that you can do. Your dad has never understood this…"

"Said the man who is on trial for lese-majesty!"

"Cut it out, Lucas! Not in front of your child!" the commandant snarls.

"Well, your reign of fear is over, you'll have what you deserve…" Lucas bugs him.

"You can't understand, it was my responsibility, my burden."

"Every tyrant says this," Lucas cuts off, foretasting the quarrel which is coming.

But the commandant closes himself in an obstinate silence and starts to go down the hill. Suddenly, he stops, insecure. He looks around,lost.

"Fuck! Dad, we're lost!" Lucas is so furious that he doesn't realize the fact that he called him "Dad."

Nathaniel, instead, hears it and winces. He has just realized that they are in an unknown part of the jungle and that there are only two of them. "Where is the child?"

"Julius!" Lucas starts to scream "Show up! It isn't funny!"

The man start to search for his son, more and more nervous.

The child is nowhere. Nightfall is coming to Terra Nova and the noises of the animals suddenly look more threatening.

"When you were a child, you escaped to hide in the neighbors' garden, we couldn't find you until that night. Your mother was crying her eyes out. When they brought you home, I didn't know if I should have hugged or killed you!"

"These memories are really touching, old man, but I just want to let you know that we are lost in a dense jungle full of dinosaurs and we can't find my son!" Lucas snarls.

They frantically start to search for the child; minutes go by and the tension is palpable.

The jungle is calm, a cold breeze has started to blow and the child is still unseen.

Julius has vanished.

**What happened to Julius?  
Why is Nathaniel on a trial?**

**To be continued…**


	12. Mistake, again

_(This story is for Fany and Amahy. thank you very much)_

**Mistake, again**

"Stop asking me, Lucas!"

"You're mindless. But I understand: a man in love with you, who wants to marry you, is such a burden…" he answers, ironically.

"I just want to remind you that you're still in a prison cell for… Wait, let me remember… Oh, yes, the attempted homicide of your father, the destruction of

many of the colony's buildings, and then… oh, well, I nearly forgot the dozens of corpses you left behind!"

"I love you."

"You don't, I'm just the only one left."

It is true, she is the only thing he has left. He has her and the hatred of his fatherburning inside.

And he has a knife.

"I love you, Skye. And if it had been just sex between us, you wouldn't be back."

"You know, I like taking care of the wretched. Do they give you enough to eat?"

"Of course they don't. The colony struggles against hunger and my father locks up everyone, so the jailbirds get only the leftovers of the leftovers. Yesterday they

arrested one of the last Sixers. I heard him screaming for hours in the interrogation room. So, is that my father's justice?"

"It's a war, Lucas. Your folks instead just opened fire on men, women and

children. Innocent civilians. Well done!"

She turns and she leaves.

All Lucas can do is listen to the by-now-usual prison's noises: Carter whistling, a Sixer who has been crying for days, one of the few survivors of the Phoenix

mercenary group who is screaming and swearing in order to get some food.

A day like any other.

He corrupted a guard to have that knife. His father is pushing his luck, even his

subordinates began to question his realm of terror.

Tonight, when the guard will change, he will flee. And finally he'll have the upper

hand on the commander.

He'll finally have his revenge.

**(Several hours later)**

When they bring him back to his cell, he has some more bruises.

And, for good measure, he just came to know that he'll be father.

An accidental son. With Skye. An unwanted son.

He shouted to her while they dragged him away: "Do you know what has been my worst mistake? Bumping you against that Rover. And then leaving you there.

Everything could've happened to you. I thought that the Rover could've protected you long enough for someone to find you, but I made a huge mistake. I

was too angry. Damn, a beast beast could've come…"

They pushed him out Boylan's bar, but he managed to shout again: "I won't leave you again, I'll do everything you want. I'll be here if you want to keep this

child…"

He's not sure if she has heard this last sentence, because his father's soldierstook him and dragged him away with violence.

He lost again. He's back in a cell, the same one from which he fled a few hours

ago. Such an asshole.

He did not revenge his mother, nor the wretched life to which his father has condemned him. He did not stop the tyrant. He did not win, not even this time.

When they slam him against the cell's wall, the scars on his back, another sweet present from his father, announce their presence.

Oh, no, he has not forgotten what he has done to him. He will never forget.

For Terra Nova's justice. Yeah… what a despicable farce!

Now it's night. Lucas doesn't see a single star from the small slit on the top of his cell.

But someone is passing by the external wall of the building. He hears a bucket, a metal bucket, violently hitting the bars.

"Bucket!" he shouts.

Only silence. Whoever they were, now they're gone.

It was her. With that small gesture, she let him know everything he needed.

She will keep their baby.

Lucas falls asleep. He has to rest.

Now he has a tomorrow.


	13. Gone

**Gone**

**(Lucas)**

The first time Lucas got arrested, they literally dragged him out of the bed, a bed which still scented of her hair.

The soldiers were young, very angry and craving revenge for their dead or wounded comrades. Having their hands on their enemies' boss was such a fruitful occasion.

And so Lucas reached his cell with some bruises as a gift. His father's subordinates, they said, didn't stink as the dinosaurs, but they surely were as tedious as them.

The second time Lucas got arrested, he had just found out the would become a father.

What a bitter irony, he came to Terra Nova to wreck his own father. Instead, the only thing he managed to do was chain down his own heart. Become a father himself. Good job.

At that moment, gazing at the moon beams filtering il flashes down his cell, Lucas realized he was hopelessly in love. And therefore lost.

_"__Am I in love?"_

He couldn't know that his beloved one would ask herself the same question, but ten years later.

**(Ten years later)**

**(Skye)**

"Am I in love?"

Skye Tate was never afraid. She never showed weakness, or fear, or hesitation, at least in public.

And sometimes she didn't even show it to herself.

That's why, when she realized that she had finally fallen in love with the man with whom she accidentally had a baby, she felt lost. She tried to neglect the deep feeling that caught her throat. Uselessly. It wasn't attraction anymore, it wasn't sex, it wasn't just mutual companyanymore. She was in love with Lucas Taylor.

But it was hard to keep calm because Julius, their child, together with Lucas had vanished into the jungle.

Oh, my God, Lucas will find him, I'm sure. Lucas will bring him back to me.

But nobody came.

Skye felt lost, alone as never before. What would she do without her child?

A tense stomach, a taste of gall pervading her mouth. Her baby. Her love. Alone, without his mom.

They haven't yet come back. Nor Lucas, nor Julius, nor the commander. And Skye feels lonely, as if she alone was on that hostile Earth, on that planet which didn't see her come into the world, but that she calls home. A home that now seems terribly empty.

(to be continued)


End file.
